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An Introduction to the Nur Community of Turkey Qaisar Mohammad Lecturer, Departmnet of Higher Education, Govt

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An Introduction to the Nur Community of Turkey Qaisar Mohammad Lecturer, Departmnet of Higher Education, Govt American International Journal of Available online at http://www.iasir.net Research in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences ISSN (Print): 2328-3734, ISSN (Online): 2328-3696, ISSN (CD-ROM): 2328-3688 AIJRHASS is a refereed, indexed, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary and open access journal published by International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR), USA (An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research) An Introduction to the Nur Community of Turkey Qaisar Mohammad Lecturer, Departmnet of Higher Education, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir, India. Abstract: The renewer (mujaddid) of the previous century had been Mevlana Khalid; the renewer of this century was not Said Nursi but his Treatise of Light Risale-i Nur. The Risale-i Nur has become the tool that pulls diverse groups together. After the Quran and Prophetic traditions, Nursi’s writings are the most read books in Turkey. The development and distribution of this way of thinking and its implication for matters of faith continued with the emergence of various publishing houses, organizations, foundations, educational institutions, press and media, publications and journals, and academic studies. Such a structure exists because the necessity of grasping belief logically takes precedence over other forms of worship or practices of faith. The influence of the Nur movement has increased even as the movement frequently has fragmented. This paradox indicates the flexibility and broad range of the Nur idiom. The fragmentation has led to fierce competition among Turkish political parties to court the followers of the various Nurju groups. The Nur movement also found some of its strength in republican failures. Outstanding among these was the inability of the secular republican ideology to replace Islam as a world view. The Nur movement’s ability to direct its operations through a cultural framework partly imposed by the Turkish republic, together with its rhetoric which incorporated a strain of Islamic mysticism, answered the operational mode and the spiritual demands of a Turkish clientele. Keywords: Nursi, Nurju, Risale-i Nur, Gulen, Serif Mardin I. Introduction Said Nursi (d.1960) left behind a collection of about 130 works entitled Risale-i Nur (The Tractates of Light). His views on society, humanity, nature, and the destiny of the world, and his interpretations of Quranic verses in the light of modern science, powerfully impress his disciples. It is a characteristic of the various Nursi groups that when meet, they reverently absorb themselves in Nursi’s writings, as though inhaling them for inspiration. The Nursis believe they have a universal mission. They have opened private high schools in other countries, such as in the former Islamic republics of the Soviet Union, and in Australia. They like to recall that the Ottomans were once a great world power. They look to the Ottoman time as a period of splendor in both religion and politics. Their contemporary efforts are directed to recapturing that spirit of greatness and authority.1 The Nursis are primarily intent on saving the faith, especially in the modern age. For instance, they wish to use science as an aid in proving the truth of Allah. The text-based nature of the movement makes it unique; since Nursi’s death in 1960, no one has succeeded him, and the movement remains very much centered around his writings. The Nur movement’s emphasis on text naturally has resulted in its involvement in the publishing and printing businesses. II. Manpower of Nurjus The Nur (or Nurju) Movement is the leading Islamic movement in Turkey, comprising about a dozen communities2 with followers estimated to number between 2 and 6 million.3 Some have even cited the movement as encompassing nearly ten percent of the Turkish population. However, since the entry requirements to Nurju circles are very loose, there is a constant movement of members from one circle to another. In Turkey, the Nur movement acquired its most striking universalistic characteristics between 1950 and 1975.4 Serif Mardin comments on the ambiguous nature of the movement’s boundaries: 1 Adil Ozdemir and Kenneth Frank, Visible Islam in Modern Turkey (London: Macmillan Press ltd. 2000), 70. 2 Resat Kasaba, The Cambridge History of Turkey Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 384. Also: Adil Ozdemir and Kenneth Frank, Visible Islam in Modern Turkey (London: Macmillan Press ltd. 2000), 70. Also: M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 130. 3 Resat Kasaba, The Cambridge History of Turkey Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 384. 4 Serif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 24. AIJRHASS 15-854; © 2015, AIJRHASS All Rights Reserved Page 191 Qaisar Mohammad, American International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 13(2), December, 2015-February, 2016, pp. 191-195 “The social characteristics of its earliest following, just as those of its present votaries, are difficult to pinpoint. Since it does not operate on the model of a traditional Islamic sect, but claims it is a medium for the ‘dissemination of the truth of the Quran’, its boundaries are diffuse: every person who joins in the task of dissemination is ipso facto a disciple. There are no initiation rites and there is no formal organizational structure; a precise count of the membership is, thus, impossible”.5 Nurju networks in politics, media and education empower the community in public life. This movement did not take the form of an organized political party and never took on the formal organizational structures of a Sufi order. Instead, it was a “faith movement” that involved publishing organizations and groups of people inspired by Said Nursi’s writings6 collectively known as Risale-i Nur. In that sense, it has been the first and unique text- based Islamic movement in Turkey. Whether one lives within the Jamaat community or is only involved in it, the movement is a place the students turn for aid.7 Furthermore, Ablas (older sisters) in the group provide guidance to the younger girls.8 The movement was overwhelmingly composed of men, though it continues to be true in the present as well9 but women’s groups later formed,10 nevertheless, it continues to be a male-dominated movement.11 In opting to be a part of the Nur movement, therefore, one also bows to the movement’s standards, submitting to its judgment. Indeed, the acceptance of such judgment is one aspect of being associated with a given identity. The Nurju grouping that prospered in the second half of the 1980s and the 1990s did so among small-scale merchants and the expanding professional groups in Turkey. There are several reasons for this mushrooming of traditional and modern Islamic networks. A club like arrangement of Nurju Dershanes (Nur Study Circles) as centers for the exchange of legal and business advice has contributed to the spread of the Nurju Dershane network throughout Turkey, particularly in those major cities experiencing economic growth. III. Methodology of Nur Jamaat Nursi founded the Nur community, in which the central form of religious activity is reading and reproducing the ideas in Risale-i Nur. After Nursi’s death in 1960, his followers divided into subgroups and have developed various forms of Islamic activism in politics, publishing, education and media. After the 1980s, the followers of the charismatic preacher Fethullah Gulen (b.1941) became the leading group among Nur communities. The Gulen Community focuses on educational activism by founding summer camps, student dorms, high schools and universities. There are more than 500 high schools, with more than 100,000 students in ninety one countries around the world, associated with the Gulen Community. One-fifth of these schools are in the Newly Independent States of Central Asia. Their schools are being established in India as well. IV. Political involvement of Nurjus The Nurju movement has gone through important phases since the 1960s. In the early 1970s, some Nurju groups began to side with the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi), which was founded with the support of the Naqshbendi order. Another important split occurred in the aftermath of the military coup of 1980 between those who supported the coup (the group around Mehmet Kirkinci, Mustafa Sungur and Bayram Yuksel) and those who positioned themselves against it (the Yeni Asya group around Mehmet Emin Birinci, M. Nuri Gulec Firinci and Mehmet Kutlular). Those organized around Yeni Asya newspaper, have supported Centre-right parties such as the Democratic Party and True Path Party. A group under the leadership of Fethullah Gulen, associated with the newspaper Zaman (Time), increased its influence especially in the 1990s by accommodating with the secularist military and bureaucratic elite and adopting a Turkish nationalist position.12 5 Serif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 25-26. 6 Serif Mardin “Nurculuk.” In The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 255-6. 7 Wuthrich, Aimee M. “Identity and the Nur Movement in Turkey: Trying to see the Gray”. A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University, (July 2007): 48. 8 Wuthrich, Aimee M. “Identity and the Nur Movement in Turkey: Trying to see the Gray”. A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University, (July 2007): 48. 9 Wuthrich, Aimee M. “Identity and the Nur Movement in Turkey: Trying to see the Gray”. A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University, (July 2007): 63.
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